It came as a bolt from the blue when Jim Bolger announced yesterday that he is most unlikely to saddle New Approach for the Derby. The Irish equivalent is the preferred option for a colt who has dominated betting on the Epsom classic for the past seven months.

It is all Bolger's doing. There are no grounds for questioning his stated desire to win classics in Ireland instead. And Sheikh Mohammed, who owns New Approach, has no other front-line Derby candidate to shy from - unless you count Ibn Khaldun, who was accurately labelled an unlikely stayer by Godolphin personnel last month.

So where does that leave the Derby? Precariously balanced at best - particularly when Epsom is being rebuilt, and Vodafone stepped in as an eleventh-hour sponsor even though its existing contract had expired. All in all, the champion two-year-old's defection is a bodyblow for a race that has recaptured much of its lustre of late.

The fallout will be starker still if any horse beaten by New Approach goes on to triumph at Epsom. Hail the emperor with no clothes: an imposter on a once pre-eminent stage. What is now urgently required is a delicious trial winner to refresh the palate.

That quest commences in the stanjamesuk.com 2,000 Guineas on Saturday week. New Approach remains favourite for the Newmarket classic, but the burning question now is whether he will be opposed by Twice Over.

When bookmakers yesterday shuffled the Derby pack they promoted Twice Over to 5-1 favourite ahead of 10-1 shots Ibn Khaldun and Curtain Call, who returns at Nottingham tomorrow. A glance further down the list reveals the usual plethora of doubtful stayers, and this detail will surely play on Twice's Over's connections as they consider their options.

They will put their own horse first but New Approach's Derby absence is bound to infiltrate their minds. It cannot be otherwise. With the one-time favourite out of it, they may be both right and wrong in their assessment of Twice Over's Derby prospects.

Twice Over could still win the Derby even if, as his connections suspect, his optimum racing distance proves to be ten furlongs. Sir Percy, Benny The Dip and Erhaab, all winners of the Derby, make a convincing precedent at a time when so few three-year-olds are custom-bred for the job.

In the circumstances it is hard to believe the opportunity will be spurned. And any Derby bid would preclude Twice Over contesting the 2,000 Guineas. In truth, the latter race must have been an afterthought from the way he was campaigned last term. No two-year-old in the modern era has run over ten furlongs, as did Twice Over last season, en route to the Guineas.

In last week's Craven Stakes Twice Over rallied to pip Raven's Pass because the latter faltered close home. John Gosden, who trains Raven's Pass, gave warning that his colt would improve for the run, yet the ease with which he headed Twice Over should have sustained him to the line. Instead he weakened like a colt with suspect stamina.

Given Raven's Pass's ancestry, this is a perfectly plausible explanation. And Gosden's Infallible, the 1,000 Guineas favourite after her stunning Nell Gwyn Stakes triumph, is in a similar predicament.

While her sire, Pivotal, gets milers aplenty, he invariably does so from more stoutly-bred mares than Infallible's dam, who was herself a sprinter. The slow Nell Gwyn fractions almost certainly played to Infallible's strengths in that seven-furlong trial.

New Approach was a picture of health when Bolger presented him to the media in Ireland yesterday. His 2,000 Guineas preparation is right on schedule. In his anticipated absence from Epsom, however, it may be too much to ask that an artist's impression of Derby Day will be equally rosy.